flstandardbreds Chapter 290 Lead Them Out
Chapter 290 Lead Them Out
"Are there still no movements from the Lana people on the other side?"
Inside the fortress, John sat on a cushioned chair and asked the scout, moving his position to make himself more comfortable. The comfort level of this fortress was completely different from the embassy where John had stayed before. It was spring. If it was winter with heavy snow, John would never bring his army here.
"The Lana army on the other side has set up camp on the south side of the river a hundred miles away from the mountains, and the other side is constantly sending reinforcements."
After listening to the scout's report, John calculated the military comparison between the two sides. John was definitely no match in terms of numbers, because they were on the opposite territory, and the Lana people could increase their troops as they wanted.
As for why John did not recruit soldiers in the Southwest Governor's territory, one reason was that the building level here was too low according to the system's evaluation. To upgrade to the same level of troops as John's army, a large amount of money would be invested and several months of construction time would be required. After the buildings were built, John would have to spend more money and time to recruit troops that met John's requirements.
As for mercenaries, even though the local culture and environment were not much different from John's territory, for some reason, no high-level mercenaries could be found here, and the low-level ones were just cannon fodder. John could only guess that because the mercenary industry was more popular during the Hundred Years War, all the powerful mercenaries went to the eastern border.
However, John soon found a replacement, such as the more than 100,000 Midland regular troops led by Hoss. Although Hoss's command ability was too poor, if it came to the quality of the regular troops, Lana and Midland could almost be evenly matched.
A few days later, John's letter reached Hows. At this time, Earl Hows had recovered from John's anger at standing him up. However, after reading the letter, the nameless anger rose again.
Since John led the army alone to take back the border mountains in a situation where the enemy was outnumbered, the dignitaries in Wendam began to compare John with Hoss after celebrating. Obviously, in this comparison, Hoss was completely defeated in every aspect. Although those dignitaries who mocked Hoss privately may not be as good as Hoss, this did not prevent them from attacking Hoss because of this incident. After all, it was Hoss who was embarrassed at this time, not them.
Originally, Hoss did not want to lead his troops to the border mountains. In his opinion, as long as John lost the war, those powerful ministers who had attacked him would turn their attention to John, who had no backing or allies in the court.
But he changed his mind and felt that this was not the right approach, because he was the commander-in-chief of this war. If he did not go, and John was defeated, he would report to the king that he had neglected his duty and did not immediately lead his troops to the front line to fight. Then, only imprisonment would await Howth.
Hoss reluctantly led a group of troops from Bernas to the border mountains. After counting the number of people Hoss brought, John looked at the report and asked Hoss beside him in confusion:
"Lord Hoss, how many people did you bring this time?"
Hoss stroked his beard and said:
"Excluding other non-combatants, I brought 20,000 soldiers this time."
John was even more surprised when he heard this and asked:
"Didn't you have 200,000 Midland standing troops when you went to war? Even if you lose the battle, at least half of them will be left."
"It is precisely because we lost the battle that I let the wounded rest in the rear. These 20,000 soldiers are all carefully selected by me. I believe that with your combat experience, even if there are only 20,000 soldiers, it will be enough for you to command."
Hoss couldn't help but feel secretly proud when he said this. Judging from some of John's micro-expressions, he thought that John was going to make things difficult for him again. Fortunately, he was smart and brought fewer soldiers than he needed. Now John would probably have to give up his original plan.
"Twenty thousand is twenty thousand, it's not impossible."
However, what Hoss did not expect was that after thinking for a while, John changed his previous sad expression and said to Hoss with satisfaction:
"With these people of yours, my next counterattack plan against Lana can be implemented smoothly."
"Plan, what plan?"
"Nothing much, just seeing that the Lana army didn't take the initiative to attack us, I wanted to see if I could take the initiative to attack them."
"what!"
Hoss was startled when he heard this and asked quickly:
"So what exactly is your plan?"
John said casually:
"We will send the standing army to test the opposing camp, and then wait for the Lana people to attack us and use our defense to consume their strength."
"its not right!"
Hoss quickly figured out the key to the matter, and then he asked back:
"And your army?"
"Of course my army is responsible for defense!"
"no!"
In an instant, Howth rejected John's proposal. Although he did not build the standing army, it was given to him to command by the king. If there were only a few people left in the battle, the king would hate him to death.
Finally, after much negotiation between the two sides, John agreed to deploy an army to assist the Midlan regular army in the attack. On a sunny day a few days later, two Midlan generals, each commanding 10,000 men, and John's army of about 5,000 men advanced towards the Lana camp under the watchful eyes of John and Hoss.
Ten miles away from the Lana camp, the Midlan army saw the Lana army lined up in front of the camp.
"What's next?"
asked a Midland general, looking at the army in the distance that seemed to be of the same number as his own.
"What else can we do? The old way. Line up first and let the artillery get the cannons ready."
Before long, the armies of Mitlan and Lana began to move forward one after the other. The spearmen at the front advanced slowly with their spears pointed at the Lana people to the beat of the military band.
When the two armies reached a distance of one hundred meters, the artillery of both sides opened fire on each other. From time to time, shells fell into the opposite array and killed several unlucky soldiers, while the supervision team rode horses and shuttled between the arrays to maintain the formation.
When they reached fifty meters, archers from both sides began to shoot arrows at each other. Arrows rained down on the soldiers of Midlan and Rana. Small-scale deserters had already begun to appear, but they were quickly driven back to the ranks by the supervisory team.
"Now, charge!"
At a distance of less than ten meters, General Mitlan seized the opportunity and immediately gave the order to charge. Accompanied by a loud horn, the Mitlan spearmen formed a charge formation and charged head-on with the Lana spearmen in hand, spears in hand.
Although the Midran army took the initiative and caused certain losses to the Lana army, the Lana people quickly stabilized the front line and responded to the Midran spears with a defensive posture. Under the spears of both sides, soldiers were stabbed and fell down from time to time, and the soldiers in the rear also had to endure the attacks of arrows and artillery shells.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"
A horn sounded from behind Lana, and then the soldiers on the battlefield heard the sound of horse hooves, which was the sound of the Knights of the Golden Fleece charging.
"Knights, follow me and charge forward to tear open a hole in the formation of the Mitlan people on the opposite side!"
The leader of the Knights of the Golden Fleece shouted to the other knights on the way to the charge, and the entire knight order quickly changed its formation to an attack formation and rushed towards the flank of the Midlan army.
The result was obvious. The flank that was not specially defended was no match for the heavy cavalry charging at full speed. With just one charge, a hole was opened in the lance of the Midland knights on the right wing, and some Midland infantrymen were directly pierced through the body by the lance.
This was not the end yet. The Knights quickly withdrew from Midlan's ranks, and after gathering, they rushed towards the archery and artillery arrays behind Midlan.
"Hurry up and organize the defense!"
General Midlan began to order his men to defend after seeing the enemy knights appear, but due to the arrows and artillery attacks from the enemy, the soldiers were unable to form a formation.
"Where are Governor John's troops? Where have they gone?"
"General, they seem to have run away."
Seeing that his allies had disappeared, General Midland realized that there was no point in staying here. Looking at the defense line that was struggling to hold on ahead, he immediately ordered a retreat.
Accompanied by a long horn sound, the Midlan army began to retreat, and the Lana army on the opposite side also began to pursue the victory and began to disperse and chase the Midlan soldiers who fled north.
In the camp, General Schneider was not happy at all after hearing the news of Lana's victory, because the battle was a whimper, and he had no idea what the enemy was up to. He was cautious and wanted to recall the pursuing troops, but was persuaded by some generals:
"Sir, the basic intelligence shows that John's army on the opposite side has only 10,000 soldiers, and the Midland army that attacked this time has more than 20,000 soldiers. This may be the main force of the opposite side. If we can capture this army, the Midland people on the opposite side will have no soldiers to use."
"Yes sir, let them chase!"
Listening to the generals' request, Schneider was not sure what the other party's purpose was, but as the generals said, this was indeed a rare opportunity, so he could only say:
"Well, let all armies, especially the Knights of the Golden Fleece, act as a whole. The maximum distance of pursuit should not exceed fifty miles."